Free Uncovered by Linda Winfree

pursed in concentration. Tick swallowed a groan. As good as she was with making connections, he was screwed.
    “Allison…oh my God.” A note of glee entered her voice, and he cringed. She covered her mouth and stared at him, her eyes sparkling. “She’s the cheerleader, isn’t she?”
    He tried to head it off. “Cait—”
    “She is. This is the one you lost your virginity with.” She laughed, the hand over her mouth doing little to muffle the sound. “In the football equipment room.”
    He was going to kill Del. As his brother was the only other person who knew about that teenage indiscretion besides him and Allison, Del was the only way Caitlin would have known.
    Hands at his hips, Tick gazed down at his wife. An answering smile tugged at his own mouth. “Are you finished?”
    “You’re leaving me to meet the woman who took your innocence.” Caitlin lay back on their bed, a hand over her chest as she tried to control the giggles. “Should I be threatened?”
    He grasped one gorgeous ankle and tugged her toward him before leaning down to kiss her. “No. Not in the least.”
    Unable to resist the dark sweetness of her mouth, he deepened the kiss until she moaned into his. He pulled away with a grin. “Now hold that thought until I get back. I won’t be long.”
    Twelve minutes later he stood in front of the house on Miller Court, hands in his jacket pockets, waiting on Allison. Damn, it was cold tonight. The weather had been on a typical southwest Georgia roller coaster lately—unseasonably warm for a day or so, then dipping witch’s-titty low just to bounce back up.
    He could think of things he’d rather be doing than standing around in the cold in what had always been one of the less favorable areas of town. The small brick ranch houses sat close together with cramped postage-stamp yards. How had that girl rotted beneath this house without anyone noticing the smell?
    And who was she? The familiar need to track down the answers took root in him again. He didn’t like unfinished business or unanswered questions, never had.
    Headlights swept the houses as a small car turned onto the narrow street. The Honda braked with a soft metallic whine behind his truck. The interior light bounced off Allison’s blonde hair. She hurried up the walk, pulling her thin sweater about her.
    “Hi.” She smiled as she reached him, laying a light hand on his biceps. “Thank you so much for doing this.”
    “No problem.” He would have to repent for that lie later. Jingling the house keys, he bounded up the steps. The sooner he took care of this, the sooner he could be back at home, back in bed, wrapped up in Caitlin.
    The lock stuck and he jiggled the key, pulling the door toward him as did so. “How old is your daughter?”
    “She’s thirteen.”
    “Thirteen?” He glanced over his shoulder at her as the door swung inward. “Lord, I can’t imagine you with a teenager.”
    She laughed, the airy sound from their youth a little drier and harsher now. “Willow is my baby. Tick, my oldest is seventeen.”
    “Wow.” He shook his head and stepped back to let her precede him. “That’s wild.”
    “Yeah.” Some indefinable sadness filtered into her voice and she stopped in the hallway, shivering, moving a step closer to him. “The house feels different now.”
    He could understand that. Finding a corpse, even one long dead, under her home had to be a bitch.
    “It shouldn’t take me but a couple of minutes to get Willow’s things.” She pressed the light switch near the hallway door. Nothing happened. She flipped it a couple more times, frustration drawing her mouth into a tight line. “Darn it. The wiring in this place is a mess. I bet the fuses are blowing again. I kept having to stumble to the electrical box in the utility room all last week.”
    He pulled his Maglite from its pouch and shone the bright beam down the narrow hall. “Better?”
    She flashed a smile in his direction. “Thanks.”
    Holding the